Like many people my age, I have fond memories of walking up and down the aisles at Toys R Us stores when I was a kid. However, I recently had the chance to do the same with my nine-year-old, and the current stores are nowhere nearly as engaging. She was excited to go, and wanted a new toy, but the store wasn’t doing anything for her. Perhaps it was that the toys aren’t as good as when I was a kid–they certainly don’t seem as creative somehow. Perhaps kids are just more into video games than they back in my day; video games became a thing while I was a kid in my single digits, and were very expensive. Anyway, it’s sad to know that something like this is gone.

Ironically, the thing that took us to the store was to buy a controller for the Nintendo Switch, which Toys R Us had in stock and was nearby. We also had a gift card from my daughter’s previous birthday that had been languishing for over a year, something I can’t imagine happening to my younger self.

Interesting that the creator and writer of Jessica Jones really didn’t take anything from The Defenders into account in the character’s main story. I wonder if that’s true of the other main characters–modulo Daredevil, obvs. It’s kind of a shame that it all built up to a series that had at least one of the characters almost completely unaffected one way or another.

I’m only three episodes in to Jessica Jones, and enjoying it quite a bit so far. I’d say that, based only on those early episodes, that it’s the best Marvel series in awhile. I thought The Punisher ended up better than it had any right to be, but Iron Fist and Luke Cage were disappointing. I really hope they hit the next season of Daredevil out of the park.

As someone who long ago considered myself a conservative, I find the hypocrisy and lack of principles in the current conservative movement among the most baffling developments of the past 20 years. I personally became more liberal as I aged, but was initially pushed away from political conservatism by it becoming nearly synonymous with the religious right wing; I am decidedly not religious.

In any case, I found several of this article’s points to be well-made and worth a read.

“Principled conservativism continues to exist, primarily at small journals of opinion, but it is increasingly disconnected from the stuff that thrills the masses. I remember as a high school student in the 1980s attending a lecture at UCLA by William F. Buckley Jr. I was dazzled by his erudition, wit and oratorical skill. Today, young conservatives flock to the boorish and racist performance art of Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter. The Conservative Political Action Conference couldn’t find room for critics of Trump, save for the brave and booed Mona Charen, but it did showcase French fascist scion Marion Maréchal-Le Pen.”

“As a doctor, I feel I have a duty to inform the public of what I have learned as I have observed these wounds and cared for these patients. It’s clear to me that AR-15 or other high-velocity weapons, especially when outfitted with a high-capacity magazine, have no place in a civilian’s gun cabinet.”

Great report from GQ. It’s absolutely infuriating that we’ve let the NRA hobble what should be a basic tool for investigating crimes.

Moreover, this quote:

“We have more gun retailers in America than we do supermarkets, more than 55,000 of them. We’re talking nearly four times the number of McDonald’s. Nobody knows how many guns that equals, but in 2013, U.S. gun manufacturers rolled out 10,844,792 guns, and we imported an additional 5,539,539. The numbers were equally astounding the year before, and the year before that, and the year before that.”

When I tell people I’m heading out for a mountain bike ride at night, I usually get a look of surprise and concern. With mountain biking’s reputation as an “extreme” sport, the idea of adding darkness to it seems insane to most. Of course, the mountain biking I do isn’t like what those same people associate with the term, which usually looks more like Red Bull Rampage.

While I don’t think of it as inherently more dangerous, night riding does make a trail that might be boring during the daytime much more interesting. Modern LED light sets made for bikes have improved to the point that they put out as much light as you might wish and last a long time, using smaller batteries than ever. Adding to the appeal is our weather this year: here in California, our winter looks downright lovely to most of the country. Crisp, clear nights have made the riding this winter super enjoyable.

The downside of riding at night in this area is that it’s illegal; almost all open spaces here close at sundown. That’s unfortunate in large part because it seems relatively arbitrary. I think that most land managers are worried about lawsuits if someone gets injured at night, and don’t really want to have rangers on staff all night. Of course, that means that we’re really hoping to not run into any rangers who are on duty, since they issue pricy tickets if they catch us. The alternative–riding solo on a trainer indoors to keep fit–is so much less appealing. Given how many I see out on the trails, it’s a risk quite a few dedicated cyclists have been willing to make.

I love that Ainsley is enjoying My Neighbor Totoro so much. She invited her friend (and neighbor) Nora over to share her new fave. She immediately asked that I take her to the store to get a Totoro plush toy she’d seen a couple weeks earlier, but hasn’t seen the show. She sleeps with the thing every night now; it’s her favorite. Next up: Nausicaä. :)

On a bittersweet note, this is one of the last images I’ll make with the Leica setup I acquired almost exactly three years ago. The Leica is moving on to a new home, but that’s making room for something new, which I’ll share soon.

Val, Ainsley and I spent a weekend recently at New Brighton State Beach in Aptos, near Santa Cruz. It’s close to home and originally intended to shake out the trailer at the beginning of the year. I made the reservations six months in advance, since it’s a popular spot. At the time, I figured “so what if it’s raining?” Of course–as you can see–we hit the weather jackpot: mid-‘60s and the beach mostly to ourselves. What a nice surprise, and an even nicer weekend.

“My biggest complaint is the algorithmic timeline — I truly miss the old timeline where I just saw photos from the people I follow in the order in which they were posted.”

I completely agree with this sentiment, although Instagram’s popularity has always been a bit of a mystery to me. For instance, I want to enjoy photos on my desktop as well as mobile (which was only added relatively recently, and still lags the mobile experience).

Strava recently did this as well, to a roar of disapproval. Of course, they know that it worked for Facebook, so screw the users. And I pay for Strava!

I don’t buy into any religion, and it particularly irks me when someone else’s religious views are forced into my life. That the antithesis of most Christian faiths is pushing back on this kind of overreach is pretty sweet.

“Specifically, her letter advised she has deeply held religious beliefs that a nonviable fetus is not a separate human being but is part of her body and that abortion of a nonviable fetus does not terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being.”

DC’s a dumpster fire right now. The interconnected-ness of the movies isn’t the problem–the fact that they’re making bad movies is. Here are two things they could do to make things demonstrably better, immediately: turn the stories over to the people who’ve made great DC animated films; and fire Zack Snyder. Snyder hasn’t done anything but make too-serious, dark movies of these things and his time should be over.